SOURCE: “Up and Down,” in Los Angeles Times Book Review, September 27, 1998, p. 10.

In the following review, DiMassa compares Bridget Jones's Diary to other significant confessional writings in English literature.

What's a girl to do? Radicalized in the '60s and '70s, tranquilized by the '80s, she emerges in the '90s the victim of an identity crisis. Time magazine recently identified this crisis, suggesting that “feminism today is wed to the culture of celebrity and self-obsession.” Bridget Jones, the enchanting figment of Helen Fielding's imagination, is a poster child for the confused woman of the 1990s.

It's worse than being a farmer, she moans, “there is so much harvesting and crop spraying that needs to be done: legs to be waxed, underarms shaved, eyebrows plucked, feet pumiced, skin exfoliated … The whole performance is so highly tuned you only need to neglect it for a few days...